The Daily Cupcake

I'm always looking for an easy way to update old clothing, and as a collage enthusiast, I love finding new mediums to decorate. These shoes were made with old stamps, but there are limitless options to play with. Stop by your local craft store and pick up some patterened paper or unique stickers. Don't want to spend any money? Flip through old magazines and cut out pictures that catch your eye. This project is super-easy and requires little $!

What you need:

• Old leather/faux leather shoes (if you can wipe them clean, you can decoupage them)
• Instant decoupage water-based glue, sealer and finish, in gloss (found at any crafts or hardware store)
• Paint brush
• Stamps, or any thin paper (thin wrapping paper, newspaper and pages from magazines work well)
• Scissors
• Ribbon, buttons, other embellishments (optional)
• Super glue (optional)

What to do:

1. Give your shoes a good clean before you start.
2. If you are using stamps, you don't need to do any preperation, but if you want to cover your shoes with thin paper, cut or rip it into small, stamp-sized pieces now (the next few steps can be messy, and it's not easy to ue scissors when your fingers are covered in decoupage glue).
3. Use your paintbrush to coat a small area of your shoe with decoupage glue, and cover the back of a stamp with it too. Stick the stamp on to the glue-covered section of the shoe and use your fingers to smooth down any wrinkles.
4. Stick another stamp on, slightly overlapping the first one you stuck down. Continue adding stamps this way until the entire shoe is covered: you may need to cut some of your stamps so they fit the curves of the shoe. I didn't decoupage the heels of my shoes, but you can do it if you want to.
5. Cover the outside of the shoe in a layer of decoupage glue, and paint over any stamps you folded into the inside of the shoe. Leave it to dry. Add another coat or two to make it uber-shiny and as waterproof as possible.
6. Add a bow, button, or any other embellishments.

Useful tips:

• Make sure you use waterproof decoupage glue and remember that, although it will protect your shoes from rain, splashing around in puddles is best avoided.
• If you make a mistake you have a few seconds to remove the offending stamp before the decoupage glue starts to set. If a few seconds has passed, it is better to cover it with a new stamp rather then peel it off and risk ripping the stamp underneath.
• Leave the point of the shoe until last, as it is the hardest part to cover. Either use lots of little pieces of paper to cover it, or use one big stamp, folded strategically.
• Don't worry if your shoes don't match. It is far too time-consuming to make an identical pair of decoupage shoes, so make the fact each shoe is

  is different, add a bow or other embellishment to each shoe so they look like a pair.

  • Scuffed your newly decoupaged shoes? Not an issue. Just cover the mark with a new stamp and give the area surrounding it another coat of decoupage glue.

   

  [taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/28/make-old-shoes-new]